


Sanctuary

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Sesame Street (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-01-03
Updated: 2005-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-25 09:01:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1642931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snuffleupagus senses something different in Sesame Street. This takes place after Mr. Hooper's death.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sanctuary

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Jack

 

 

The neighborhood was strangely quiet, Snuffleupagus noted, his massive, furry figure ambling past gray and weathered tenements. He gazed around him curiously, stopping on occasion to raise his trunk and sniff the air. Save for the usual smells of urban decay as well as what seemed to be a coming rainfall, the elephant didn't catch anything out of place that could explain the hollow silence that had descended on Sesame Street.

Here and there, he spotted an abandoned toy sitting on the cracked pavement. In the courtyard, the swing moved slightly with the breeze--looking so mournful in its isolated state. Snuffleupagus shook his head in some confusion. He'd seen the play area completely emptied before. Somehow, though, there was something undeniably different in its desolation right now--an unexpected force that blanketed the entire neighborhood with a heavy, somber cloak, and what had long been the usual sights and sounds of a street whiling away the afternoon hours in rest and relaxation now took on a more unsettling feel.

A little more disconcerted, the furry creature hurried up his ponderous gait toward Big Bird's nest, where he hoped to find some respite from the strange state in which he currently found himself. He noted that Mr. Hooper's store was dark and locked up. Across the way, the apartments where Susan and Gordon Robinson lived were also shut against the environment, every window having its faded curtains drawn--some even have their shutters closed. 123 Sesame Street looked downright spooky.

Even Oscar's trash can looked empty and lifeless. Snuffleupagus was half-convinced that if he were to knock on the lid, he'd hear his noise echo harshly within the battered container, and not a creature would come in answer to his summons.

"How strange!" the furry elephant murmured, scratching his head with his trunk as he finally pushed past the wooden gate and into Big Bird's sanctuary.

He found his friend (the first sign of life in that little patch of the inner city!) sitting comfortably in his massive nest and surrounded by scattered sheets of paper. He held a pencil in one hand while the other clumsily anchored down a wrinkled piece of paper on a bent knee, which he'd apparently been using as a table. Snuffleupagus paused by the gate as he silently watched his friend struggle with his work--scratching his pencil furiously over the paper and then stopping to inspect the results critically, tilting his head left and right as though determined to see everything from every possible angle.

"Hello, Big Bird!" the elephant presently called out with a lazy wave of his trunk.

The giant canary gave a start and looked up from his work. "Oh! Hello!" he cried.

"Are you writing a letter?"

"No. I'm trying to draw some friends."

Snuffleupagus nodded and ambled forward, carefully sidestepping sheets of paper that lay scattered on the ground as he placed himself before his friend. "Are they gifts?" he asked, lowering his considerable backside carefully so as not to sit on any paper and stopping once so he could sweep a handful of them out of the way with his tail.

"Sort of," Big Bird replied, his gaze dropping on the sketch he was currently doing. "They're really gifts to myself."

"Oh? What for?"

"So I won't forget anyone in case they--you know..."

Snuffleupagus watched his friend in silence for a moment. And when it appeared that Big Bird wasn't inclined to finish his statement, he prodded, "In case they what?"

"In case they die." The giant bird glanced up and regarded his friend thoughtfully. "Like Mr. Looper. He's not coming back, but I have his picture here with me, so I know I'll never forget him."

Big Bird shifted a little and groped around his nest, presently pulling out a piece of paper which he handed over to his companion. It was a drawing, the elephant realized, of Mr. Hooper, as he'd last seen the old storekeeper--at least from a distance, when, as always, the man wasn't looking (a rather common coincidence in his dealings with human adults). The picture looked crudely done, but knowing his friend's disposition, it was very much a sincere effort on Big Bird's part to capture what he knew best about a good friend with what skill he had.

Snuffleupagus pondered the drawing for some time, allowing his friend to carry on with his work in silence. Then he looked back at his companion and watched him struggle with his memories of friends, the strain of dredging up every minute detail that he possibly could shadowing his bright yellow features. There was something terribly sad in Big Bird's air--not to mention a good deal of confusion with which he was apparently struggling. Snuffleupagus wasn't certain as to the cause since his friend seemed to have a particularly difficult time trying to capture someone's face and figure, and at the same time, he was also unusually reticent--distracted.

He coughed a little, shifting his weight when he felt the cold pavement dig harshly into his backside. Suddenly the silence that pressed down on Sesame Street seemed to have doubled in weight. The gathering clouds seemed to have grown ten times heavier and darker in such a short amount of time. The desolation had compounded itself, and the elephant--in spite of his bulk and his protective covering--shivered at the oppressive influence.

No, he didn't understand what Big Bird meant by his reference to death and Mr. Hooper never coming back. It was too strange a concept for him, and watching his friend fumble his way along, alternately confused and saddened, only deepened his own incomprehension. He'd hoped for a bit of a respite in Big Bird's company, but he'd found none. Somehow, something had infiltrated his favorite sanctuary, stripping it of every possible layer of escape and enjoyment, and he felt helpless against whatever it was that had come so unseasonably and robbed his world of its simple clarity.

Big Bird continued to struggle with his drawing. Reflexively, Snuffleupagus raised his trunk and rubbed it against his friend's feathered cheek--a gesture of reassurance for both of them, which Big Bird acknowledged with a pensive, absent-minded pat of his hand.

"Can I have a pencil, too?" he presently asked.

Big Bird gave him one, and he was soon hard at work, clumsily sketching his friend. The pavement was a horrible surface on which to draw, but he didn't mind the wobbly lines it caused. His trunk tightened its grip on his pencil as he labored on, anxiously capturing Big Bird in graphite, knowing that it was imperative for him to be able to draw his friend's likeness though he didn't understand why Big Bird would someday never come back to him.

(fin)

_DISCLAIMER: Sesame Street is a production of Sesame Workshop (formerly the Children's Television Workshop). All characters and situations are used solely for the purpose of entertainment and not profit._

 


End file.
